CAREER ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM: PROJECT SUMMARY The Career Enhancement Program (CEP) of the Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer will develop a new cadre of investigative cutaneous oncologists and scientists committed to multidisciplinary studies investigating the relevance of biological discoveries in human skin cancer risk, prevention, diagnosis, prognosis or treatment, and enhance the careers of individuals who are already productively investigating this field. $56,262 per year is requested to support CEP, which will be matched with $56,108 from the Yale Cancer Center, to be used for the support of two faculty-level CEP Awards per year. Funding is for one year, but may be renewed for a second year. Potential candidates for these awards include promising junior faculty who are either appointed at Yale or are outside candidates or new recruits for Yale appointment. Alternatively, candidates may be established investigators, either currently at Yale or in the process of being recruited to Yale, with previous research focus in other arenas, but who will re-channel a significant portion of their focus to translational research in cutaneous oncology. All junior faculty awardees are paired with an established investigator in translational cutaneous oncology with a documented record of successful mentoring. During the second five-year funding cycle, YSPORE CEP funds were used to support the career development of seven different investigators including four women. Individuals supported to date have had diverse backgrounds and previous experience; 4 PhDs, 1 MBBS, and 2 MD/PhDs, with experience including an entry level lung carcinoma geneticist refocusing to melanoma research; established clinician scientists enabled to devote significant time to B cell anti- melanoma responses, and a junior clinician-scientist who discovered driver mutations in cutaneous T cell lymphoma.